


Cancelled

by Dulcinea



Category: Metallica
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dulcinea/pseuds/Dulcinea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stockholm, Sweden. 2009. The gig James missed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cancelled

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a real life event.

Lars waited until all of James’s interviews were done to pull him into some room. There, he finally asked, “Are you okay?”

James looked green underneath the fluorescent light. He shook his head no.

He pressed his palm to James’s forehead. “Mm. Little hot.” He checked his left cheek, then the right. “Are you nauseous?”

“A little.”

“Drank some fluids?”

“Yeah.”

His hands went to James’s shoulders. “It’s okay if we—”

“I’m not _that_ sick.”

“James.”

“I’ll be okay.”

Lars squeezed his shoulders. “Alright.” He pushed up onto his tip-toes and kissed James’s clammy cheek.

Half an hour later, during the middle of his last interview of the day, Barbara stuck her head through the door and said, “Sorry, we need you.”

“Uh?”

She motioned him over. “ _Now_.”

Lars turned to the interviewer. “Sorry about that.” He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

When he stepped out into the hallway, he faced quiet pandemonium. Crew members whizzed past him. Some frantic looks caught his eye. Tom stood beside him, ready to strike, Dr. Don beside him, as well as their tour manager and Ray, James’s assistant.

Barbara’s hand grabbed his bicep, pulling him into a dark corner, _shit,_ and she said, “It’s James.”

He froze. _What._

“He’s been throwing up all day and we’re not sure if he can play tonight.”

Don stepped in. “He’s got a fever and can’t get himself to hold anything down, but he’s refusing to go to the hospital.”

Lars exhaled the breath he was holding. “Alright.” He turned to Barbara. “Get Mensch on the phone, tell him what’s going on.” He turned to Don next. “Monitor James, see if he improves in any way, and if he doesn’t in the next thirty minutes—” He turned to Tom. “See to it that he _does_ get to that hospital.” He turned to their tour manager and Ray last. “And I want you two to go with him if that happens. Keep me posted, alright? I’ll take care of shit with Mensch when he arrives.”

They nodded almost as one and left at the same time, save Barbara. She walked with him back to the room, a hand on his shoulder. “We can cut this short.”

“No. I’ll finish it up.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

She opened the door for him and poked her head in. “Thanks for waiting.” Her hand left him as she whispered, “I’ll be outside when you’re done.”

Lars grunted in response. The interviewer and his cameraman watched him return into the bright lights and the couch with wide-eyed stares.

“Is everything okay?” the guy asked.

“Well, not really.” He flopped back down beside him. “It seems James has fallen ill.”

Ten minutes later, the interview was done. Five minutes later, he was in the dressing room, Barbara leading him through the chaos of worried looks and concerned whispers to where James was: the bathroom.

“James?” His voice echoed like the clicking of his heels.

A loud flush answered back.

He walked past 3 of the stalls until he found James in the fourth one, kneeling over the bowl, white-knuckled hands gripping the sides.

“Shit.” Lars squeezed in and knelt down beside him, brushing his palms over his hair—a habit twenty-something years old. “Min skat…”

James groaned. Sweat dotted his brow, trickling down to his chin. His skin looked worse than before, a pale color tinted green, and his heavy-lidded eyes matched how he sounded: sick. “Hi.”

Lars smiled. “Hi.”

“I’m sick.”

“Yeah.” He turned his head to kiss his cheek. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“But…”

“No, James.” He shook his head. “This isn’t going away.”

“It’s not—” James froze, his face scrunching up. A moan hissed through his clenched teeth. “Shit.”

Lars guided James’s head back to the toilet. He closed his eyes when he heard James’s retching, and he didn’t move until James was done, his hands petting James’s hair to soothe him, as well as himself.

He went into autopilot once he helped James out of the bathroom. It was business as usual, done in alert mode, just as he had done in Montreal, those three dates in ‘00, and countless other times in the past. Their tour manager went with James. He calmed down the crew. Mensch came in time to discuss with him, Kirk and Rob what to say to the crowd. And the crowd reacted poorly, some at least, but none of that mattered. Rescheduling already went underway by Mensch the second they went to the stage.

Updates came in the form of calls and text messages. He busied himself with post-show interviews, giving Kirk and Rob a way out of the mess. “I’ll be fine,” he reassured them, when he saw their guilty stares, “I’ve done it before,” and they didn’t any look better as they hugged him goodbye and said their see you soons.

Barbara was his go-to girl, helping him with anything he asked. Mensch and he ironed out business details while the crew dismantled the stage. By the time they finished, a little past eleven at night, the arena was empty, and the crew had gone.

He checked his messages as he left too, Barbara in tow. One voicemail from their tour manager waited for him.

“Hey Lars. James is okay now. The doctor cleared him to leave and we’re gonna head on back to the hotel. It was definitely the oysters he ate at lunch, they gave him food poisoning. We’ll see you there.”

His hands didn’t stop tapping on his thighs as the limo driver sped down the highway. He stared out the window, forcing himself to think over and over, _He’s okay. James is okay. You can stop now._ But his hands kept tapping. His legs shook too. The anxiety he bottled up all day finally caught up to him, and Lars focused on his breathing, focused on the mantra, _he’s okay, James is okay, it’s okay,_ until they finally reached the lobby of the hotel.

He planted himself on a couch near the sliding doors while Barbara called Ray to see where they were. His hands smoothed out on his thighs, _they’re coming, it’s okay, calm down for fuck’s sake_ , and he leaned his head back, closing his eyes. _Breathe._

“They’re about five minutes away,” she said, coming to his side. “You want anything?”

“Water.” Lars ran both hands over his face.

“Just water?”

“Yeah.” _Don’t trust myself with anything else._

“Alright.”

He calmed down after drinking three big, cold glasses. But he still felt a shaky edge left, a tiny piece of worry that wouldn’t go away until he saw James in the flesh, and better still, James in his arms. Montreal taught him well. So did all the incidents after, like the ATV, the 2000 gigs, so on and so on.

His head jerked up at the sound of doors sliding open.

Ray came through, followed by their tour manager.

Lars pushed himself to this feet as he saw James come up the rear. Their eyes met, and he smiled back when James smiled at him.

_James._

He walked in fast strides to meet James halfway. His arms flung around him, his cheek pressing hard into James’s chest, and something unwound deep inside him when James returned the embrace, lips pressing to his temple.

His fingers clutched to James’s windbreaker. Lars took a deep breath, picking up James’s cologne and the faint smell of hospital sterile on his clothes, and exhaled slowly, the sound loud and unstable to his ears.

One of the hands on his back rubbed him in small circles. “Hey.”

Lars rubbed his cheek against James’s sternum.

“You okay?”

He chuckled. “I’m the one who should ask you that.”

“Heh.” The other hand rested on the back of his neck. “I’m fine now.”

Lars pulled away to look him in the eye. He did look better. His skin was still pale, but there was no green tint anymore. There was only thick tiredness, and a faint trace of worry—for him.

He stepped back, breaking their embrace. His hand slid into James’s, pulling him forward. “C’mon.”

James easily followed.

Barbara and the others eventually retired for the night once they were settled back into their suite. Lars started packing their things while James indulged in a nice, long shower in their bathroom. He finished with James’s bags by the time James finished, even laying out his pajamas for him on the bed.

They shared a kiss when Lars passed by him to take his own shower. “Thank you,” James whispered, thumbing the corner of his lips.

He answered back with a smile.

Lars didn’t expect James to still be awake when he finished. But he found him laying on his side with one of the nightstand lights still on, the sheets pulled back and an arm sprawled out, an invitation for him to climb in beside him. And he did, slipping into the sheets and settling onto James’s side, his cheek returning to James’s sternum, a hand laying on top of James’s tummy.

The arm hugged his shoulders. James reached up with his free one to turn off the light.

In the darkness, they wiggled and shifted around until they were both comfortable, and then shared another kiss.

And it was in the darkness, as usual, that James let his insecurities out. “I didn’t worry you too much, did I?”

“No.” He played with James’s chest hair, falling into a light doze. “But I always worry about you anyway.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I knew you were going to be okay.” Lars sighed. “But yeah. I worried.”

James squeezed his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault. You didn’t know those oysters were bad.”

“Won’t be eating those for a _long_ time, that’s for sure.”

Lars chuckled. “I bet.”

“And the fans?”

“They took it well. Mensch and I worked out a new date. It’ll be finalized in a few days.”

“Good.” James’s hand left his shoulder for his chin, tilting it up slightly. Lips kissed his forehead. They brushed the skin as James whispered, “Thank you for being there for me. I love you Lars.”

Lars pushed himself up to find and kiss James’s lips. They met in the darkness once, twice, and on the third time, Lars whispered back, “I love you too James.”

In the morning, James looked, acted and sounded better than he did the day before. The sight eased all of Lars’s worries away for good, and he packed the rest of his things for their flight home later that day.


End file.
